1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system and method for connecting a cellular telephone to a computer system, and more specifically to a system and method for connecting a cellular telephone to a personal computer system through a universal serial bus port.
2. Related Art
There is an increasing need for connecting portable computing devices to computer networks, such as the Internet. A very economical way to perform such connections is to make use of existing cellular telephones that are already in use by consumers. Thus, there is a great need for an efficient and economical means for connecting cellular telephones to portable computing devices, such as lap top computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the like.
Several systems for connecting cellular telephones to personal computer systems exist today. The problem is that these current systems are very expensive both from a manufacturing standpoint and from a consumer standpoint. In addition, many of these systems require that the PC manufacture (or OEM) install a unique and proprietary cellular telephone connector to the PC motherboard or other device. Such unique connectors can only be used with specific cell phone cables that are also produced by the PC manufacturer or OEM. Thus, these current solutions prevent users from connecting their cellular telephones to other personal computer systems that lack the specific built-in and proprietary connectors.
Other solutions that are in existence today, for example, make use of a PCMCIA card to connect cellular telephones to personal computer systems. The advantage to using these systems is that they can be attached to any personal computer system that supports the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) standard.
However, the problem is that these systems are extremely expensive to manufacture. Furthermore, these devices, although relatively small, are bulky when compared to the size of many PDAs in existence today. Additionally, these devices require a separate proprietary cable in addition to the PCMCIA logic card. Still further, these devices include a micro-controller, which increases the expense, size, weight and power requirements of the device.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for connecting a personal computing system to a cellular telephone that is economical, small in size and weight, consumes low power and can be used with a variety of general-purpose computing systems.